Origin

You might have two different types of clove in your kitchen cupboard, one in a jar on the spice rack and one in a garlic bulb. These are two different words. The spice clove comes from Old French clou de girofle (source of the name gillyflower for the similarly scented pink), meaning ‘nail of the clove tree’. You can see why—cloves look like nails. The clove of garlic is an Old English word related to cleave (Old English) and cloven (Middle English).

Origin

You might have two different types of clove in your kitchen cupboard, one in a jar on the spice rack and one in a garlic bulb. These are two different words. The spice clove comes from Old French clou de girofle (source of the name gillyflower for the similarly scented pink), meaning ‘nail of the clove tree’. You can see why—cloves look like nails. The clove of garlic is an Old English word related to cleave (Old English) and cloven (Middle English).